All A Glow: Maryanne and David’s Twilight Wedding

Maryanne found her inspiration for her dream wedding to David by scouring social media, Pinterest and wedding magazines. She created a truly one-of-a-kind setting by draping dark fabric around the room of her chosen venue to create an illuminated wonderland replete with hanging wisteria, candles and three towering blossom trees lit from below. But the most memorable moment was stepping out of the church as husband and wife surrounded by the smiling faces of their loved ones.

F R O M T H E B R I D E

How we met...

We were about 17/18 years old and were at a mutual friend's bbq. I remember he was wearing a MOOKS t.shirt, which had my initials MK on either side of the shirt. A few months later we kissed at the same place we had our wedding reception, but we never exchanged numbers. Then about ten years later David asked about me to a mutual friend, he got in contact with me and we went on our first date.

When we knew it was love...

After our first date. One of my friends kept saying, 'you’ll just know when you find the one. You’ll get a feeling.' I remember saying, well maybe I won’t get that feeling maybe everyone is different. Then after our first date we kissed and I remember the ‘feeling’ I got and I knew it was love. I had butterflies in my tummy, it felt so different to past experiences. Everything was just easy and not complicated. I knew I was going to marry him.

Our engagement...

David isn’t a planner, so it wasn’t unusual when he booked dinner for 9pm at Black by Ezard at the Star. He seemed nervous throughout dinner, later did he tell me that he swapped jackets in the car and left the ring in the other jacket. We then went for a walk around the Opera House after dinner and that’s where he proposed! It was funny because he had the ring wrapped in a tissue – I remember asking where the box was and he said it was too bulky to fit in his pocket and he didn’t want to make it obvious. We had a laugh.

T H E W E D D I N G

The ceremony...

St Nikola Catholic Church at St Johns Park NSW

The reception...

The Croatian Club Punchbowl – it’s where we had our first kiss!

The bridal party...

We had five bridesmaids and five groomsmen. It was a mixture of cousins, best friends, and couples who we are Godparents to their children. My bridesmaids wore custom made French navy dresses – they all had different style tops that suited their body shape. And the groomsmen wore black suits with white shirts and black ties.

The groom...

The groom wore a Hugo Boss suit with a white shirt and a bowtie, as a point of difference.

The gown...

My wedding gown was custom made by Steven Khalil. I went to see a few Australian designers but had the best initial experience with Steven. He made me feel so special and he wanted to make my dress, he was hoping I would come and see him. I’ve met Steven when a few of my friends had chosen him to design their gowns about six - seven years ago. I remember he saw a photo of David and said I bet you’re going to marry this guy. He was so sure that I would marry him he promised to put extra beading on my dress if I came back to him when I got engaged. I loved every one of my appointments with Steven, he made the whole experience so memorable. My inspiration was the red carpet, I wanted my gown to be a fashion forward but contemporary gown that I would love in years to come. We worked together with some ideas that I loved and Steven created a custom side cape.

Our photographer...

We didn’t look around for photographers, I had been following Mark Jay Photography for the last few months and I loved the way he photographed weddings. We met with Mark and knew we wanted him to shoot our wedding, he understood we wanted natural shots, but to also capture the important aspects of the day that we wanted. He was relaxed, easy going but professional. We absolutely love our wedding photos – the way he captured the special moments and the details of the day. We wanted them to be elegant but contemporary photos. It’s so important to pick suppliers that you want to be part of your day. Mark wasn't too pushy or abrupt like so many stories we hear of others. We loved Mark Jay Photography and would definitely recommend

The flowers...

David Austin Flowers with green berries for the bridesmaids' and my bouquet was white Phalaenopsis orchids. The boutonniere for the groomsmen were David Austin roses and David had a Phalaenopsis orchid to match my bouquet.

Reception styling...

I found inspiration through magazines, Pinterest and social media. After visiting so many different venues, I felt the space at Punchbowl was the perfect blank canvas that I could transform for our guests. I wanted our guests to have a twilight night garden experience under the stars. It started with draping the room completely black (no one had done this for weddings at this venue) they thought I was mad, but I had a vision. On each alternative table there were 1.5metre tall starlights – which had 50 hanging baubles with tea light candles inside them, greenery draping on the top and sides. There was a seasonal bed of flowers and greenery on the base of the starlights. On the other alternate tables were a cluster of three different sized vases, the largest one being 80cm tall, each filled with Phalaenopsis orchids and a pillar candle.

There were also 3 x 4m tall white blossom trees set out in the room. The trees were in the centre of three guest tables, which also had a wreathe of seasonal fresh flowers and greenery with pillar candles in glass vases full around each tree. The main table was decorated with pillar candles all along the table - staggered and overlapping. We also arranged large perspex table top to cover the main table. Hanging from the dance floor ceiling, we had white wisteria with globe lights and fairy lights in a hexagonal shapes, which made guests feel like they were dancing under a night garden under the stars.

The bomboniere...

Our bomboniere were traditional decorative shot glass bottles filled with Croatian brandy. We created tags to match the invitations, which was tied with black ribbon.

Memorable moments...

The wedding morning we had a traditional Croatian band who was playing while we were getting ready. It was so memorable having my dad walk his only daughter down the aisle and hand me over to David, were we all so emotional. Walking out of the church as husband and wife was the best part of the day. We were so happy! Another memorable moment was when we walked into our wedding reception, to see our vision come to life was priceless, the feeling was overwhelming and I was just in tears. We found out later both our fathers were in tears because they couldn’t believe the transformation of the venue.

Wedding soundtrack...

We had a string quartet at church who played songs such as: Before the ceremony - Jesu Joy, The Prayer, Let It Be, Imagine, Wonderful World, A Thousand Years, Time to Say Goodbye First processional (bridesmaids) - Can't help falling in love (Elvis) Second processional (bride) - Pachelbel's Canon in D Candle ceremony - Fields of Gold Unity candle ceremony - Stand by Me Signing - Stand by Me, Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Hallelujah Recessional - Bittersweet Symphony Our first wedding dance song was A Thousand Years by Christina Perri.

M A R R I E D L I F E

The honeymoon...

Our honeymoon was ten days in New Zealand (South Island) and ten days in the Cook Islands, (Rarotonga and Aitutaki).

Future plans...

We plan to find a beautiful home and build our own family, we cant wait to start our journey as husband and wife together.

In 40 years we hope to…

Look back at our wedding photos and video with our kids and laugh at our memories. We hope to travel around Croatia and enjoy retirement.

W E D D I N G W I S D O M

On how to enjoy the engagement...

Buy magazines, search social media for inspiration and just sit back and enjoy! Enjoy it for the first few months before you start planning, if you do a bit each month/week, it will make it easier for you leading up to the wedding. Still make time for each other, it gets busy, but plan a ‘date night’ where you don’t talk about the wedding. We focused on our honeymoon when we were stressed, which got us excited for the day.

On the planning...

Create a spreadsheet and a monthly planner and then break it down to weekly and daily closer to the date. This ensured I was ticking things off the list and in control of the situation, it's important to also delegate tasks and ask for help, you cannot do everything yourself, people are there to help, even if it’s a five minute task you don’t have to do.

On the wedding day...

Enjoy the day! Things will go wrong, they always do. With all the hard work of planning you can't control it on the day. Just embrace it and enjoy it for what it is. Take a moment to yourself and breath, with no one around. The day is so busy you’ll appreciate the time alone for a minute.